‘Cuz Every Girl’s Crazy ‘Bout a Top-Dressed Bed…

ZZ Top wasn’t singing about compost? Hmm. Well, having schlepped a half-cubic yard home from the Natural Gardener, and then wheel-barrowing it all over the yard, I’m sure I subconsciously re-worded the song to honor all the new turkey compost. Mainly I wanted it to work into the new potato bed, hopefully to lower the alkalinity of our native Central Texas soil. (Potatoes dislike high alkalinity. Gives them something called scab, apparently.) If the 18-degree freeze doesn’t somehow do them in (they haven’t sprouted – just planted them Sunday), the seed potatoes ought to be ready for some mounding in 3-4 weeks.

I had lots of leftover compost, so I top-dressed several beds. Hopefully this will result in better-tasting tomatoes and peppers come time for their season. (My tomatoes last year were disappointingly bland. Sort of like store-bought tomatoes.)

I’ve been reworking my entire back yard in an effort to bring more vegetable beds online. Part of this has meant refiguring how to access some of the areas that haven’t had grass in them for a long time. I want to keep removing grass, and I have a lot of various brick around. I’ve been moving rock around, and have begun creating another broken-brick path to keep some of the garden area from being a mud- and/or weed-pit. I like the progress so far:

3 Responses to "‘Cuz Every Girl’s Crazy ‘Bout a Top-Dressed Bed…"

I like your progress so far, too! Looking great. I didn’t get my potatoes in last weekend; maybe this weekend’s not too late? And thanks for the compost reminder. We’ve got plenty, just need to add it.

We hope to plant about sixty feet of potatoes at Oak Forest on Thursday. Not sure they will let us take the kids out though since it is supposed to be near freezing and maybe even be snowing Thursday afternoon or evening. The seed potatoes are cut and drying in the workshop, so can’t wait too long before they go into the beds. Good luck with the cold tonight. Even Galveston is supposed to have a hard freeze. Ugh!

I have a 30’x30′ area in our backyard with (18) 8″ to 14″ raised veggie beds. Got tired of the weeds. Went to Natural Gardener today and brought home 1/2 yard of turkey compost. I’m tilling in all of it into 6 of the containers for the fall vegetables. Any thoughts, suggestions… Have had a successful lettuce winter crop the last couple of years. Question can I plant onions now and again in in January.